Re: Iron Chef Optimization Challenge VI

I'm sorry, who am I right now?

Originally Posted by Dagger

Dagger

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Many think I am a man. Others a woman. I am neither. And both. I am the roll. The lover, the fighter, the mother, the father. I am a blank slate on which emotion, personality, and fate is written, and then erased. I am the mannequin clothed in the needs of the moment.

I was forged for war. Not the war of sword and steel, spell and counter. The war of words, of faith, of existence. I am a diplomat, weaving situations into a silken sack that will one day be pulled over the heads of the gods for their execution. The Priests of Ur designed me. They know the gods are not all knowing, not all powerful. If so, where come the Vestige? Behind the scenes, where the curtain blocks the spotlight of deific vision they scamper. They are hidden, doing unknowable things in unknown places. I am one of those doings.

One high priest of Ur discovered how to crawl behind the curtain. He could not return, except to whisper instructions to the actors on the stage. Then they would whisper back. Knowledge was hoarded behind the backdrops of reality. I read and was taught and trained. Then the puppet was dangled out, with only the thinnest cord attached. I only know this in the vaguest of ways, from piecing bits and pieces together. They stole away the memory of all but my training. What it was for, the purpose, it's hidden away with my heart in that forgotten place.

The Ur when I arrived gave me an outline. Showed me how to plan without plans, to prepare without expectations. Then I killed them. I think they suspected I would, but they never saw it. My hand didn't touch them. They did it to themselves. The knife in my hand was suspicion, and doubt the poison. I planted it in their minds and their souls and they were destroyed. They thought I was as well. Even if they could be brought back for questioning they would think it. The secret was safe. The dagger well planted. I am the Dagger and it will be planted in the vitals of the gods.

I first visited the elven capital. Liger was a scholar. She had memories stretching back a century of her studies and wanderings, a creature with the curiosity of a man with the heart of a wildcat. Her explorations had left her maimed, so she wore a mask and clothed herself fully to hide the horrible maiming. Her beauty was in form and voice and depth of thought and she was loved by the elven people and became one with the tribe after but several decades. She would often disappear, sent on research missions and had learned the languages of a dozen people. Then she brought knowledge, the great war caravans of Gruumsh were massing for battle. Knowing her wild nature would be well received by those brutal people, but tempered by the spirit of Corellon Larethian she went to speak with them and turn them from their war. For a time it seemed they would calm, but then a family of elves were found, brutally massacred by orc waraxes. Lead by Liger, a party was sent to question the orcs, leaving only the diplomat alive to carry back the message. War would come. Atrocities were committed on both sides, and Liger tried her utmost, but there was little each party would consent to. Orc would destroy elf, or elf would destroy orc. That was the way of things, and both races would stop at nothing to eliminate the other. The Dagger had struck, and both gods would be weakened by the slow but inexorable bleeding.

A lowly acolyte of Heironeous is sent into battle as a priest and healer named Tiberious of a small band that never returned. A year later they find him barely alive in a prison of Hextor. His face has been burned past recognition, an iron mask put over his face while still hot has melded to it horribly so that it cannot be removed. His body hidden, he returns, a hero, never having broken during all his torture. For the next 30 years he rises in rank and marries an orphan he himself found on the streets and took in. Though old enough to be her father she loves him, and they have a child, though the mother dies in childbirth. The child appears bears much resemblance to a known Lord with a pentient for stealing other's wives, but a spell by Tiberious confirms that it is indeed his own. The child grows and becomes a merchant of great wealth and influence, but then his manor is set afire. He is found barely breathing, and taken to the great healer Tiberious. The fire was magic in origin, and Tiberious traces the maker of the horrible elixer that spread the fire to that of a neighboring nation. Knowing well how disfigurement can be, Tiberious fits him with how own mask. Cursing his father for being unable to heal him, his son, Lance, changes his last name and refuses to see his father.

Lance went into parliament, eventually becoming the head adviser of the city. There he delves into the information his father discovered and intercepts documents that have proven the next nation had hoped to burn down all of the city, not just its head of merchants. War is declared. Father then warns son that they have received information in the church that a high priest of Hextor has been found to have advised the burning. Sent to question, Tiberious barely leaves with his life. A holy war has begun. From other churches the followers of Heironeous beg aid. Hextor's forces, seeing a coalition of good has formed, seek their own alliances.

That was the beginning of the great crusade. First I was Liger the Wild Elf, then Bollit the Hellorc, chief of the Orc band by rightful combat. Then I was the father priest of Heironeous, aasimar son of an angelic visitor and a beautiful priestess. My wife had of course lay with that swine Lord at my urging, she would do anything for me. I caused her miscarriage, and when our 'son' gained wealth and influence through my hints and proddings and teachings I set fire to his home and then took his place after his death. I was also the cloaked Kenku war sage, Wex, who found that the church of Heironeous was planning a righteous preemptive attack on their allies.

I was each of them, and all of them, and I felt their fears, their concerns. Then I felt the other. I battled myself, and pointed the finger at my own face in blame. I plunged myself again and again into the heart of the great powers. Maybe someday, in their weakened, lowly states they will even lash out at one another. God against god, power against power. I am that blade that poisoned them against the other, and they will never know. I have no identity to know. Take away a mask and there is but another. Because there is no mask. There is only my face, cold and whetted.

Master of Masks and Spymaster of course works very well together, each mask enhancing an equivalent Cover Identity. As Master of Masks is very spell-progression poor, Archivist works best, making up for a lack of higher levels with a broad range of lesser spells. All three of these classes work around Intelligence and Charisma so it meshes well without having to focus on physical feats. Factotum is the perfect 1st level class for one wanting to dabble in various personae and being able to play them out due to its allowance of all skills.

In addition, if you are playing a spy/assassin type both classes work well. Master of Masks provides Nondetection and hefty bonus against mind affects with its Faceless mask, and Spymaster gives you nystyl's magic aura, undetectable alignment and scrying defense. Add to that Deep Cover with the Truename obscuring feats and Magic Circle Against Evil and you are utterly unknowable, untraceable and undominatable. Throw in Invisiblity and Silence and you no longer exist.

I took some borderline allowances, but by the theme of the build and the wording of the masks, Vow of Poverty is possible with this build. When wearing a good-aligned mask Dagger radiates a good aura. That's all that's required to take the feat, and nothing says when he removes the mask that he loses said feats. He also becomes his roll for all intended purposes. He has no actual identity. He is a sentient automaton who plays a role and there is nothing else when he's not that role. That's how he was created.